What to do with chestnuts

There's little more festive than roasting foraged chestnuts, but they're not just for Christmas. Try them in stews, pasta dishes, puddings and more.

We have the Romans to thank for Britain's abundance of Sweet Chestnut trees – they highly rated chestnuts as a cookery ingredient and rightly so. These beautiful, shiny nuts are wonderfully versatile and, in spite of what the name may suggest, they are equally at home in sweet or savoury dishes.

For those who enjoy gathering their food from the wild, you can find them throughout autumn. A good technique for freeing the nuts from their sharp-needled shells is to use your foot (with shoe!) to 'press and roll' over the nuts and they should pop out easily.

Where to buy them

The chestnut season is brief, but whole peeled chestnuts, either canned or vacuum-packed, are available from major supermarkets. Dried chestnuts are also available from health food stores, but must be soaked in water overnight then simmered before use. 450g fresh chestnuts (weighed in their shells) are equivalent to 175g dried, reconstituted chestnuts, or 350g tinned or vacuum-packed nuts. Canned chestnut purée, plain or sweetened, is a godsend as it saves hours of preparation. You can make an unusual (but very easy) ice cream by stirring together whipping cream, icing sugar and a tin of sweetened chestnut purée.

How to cook chestnuts

Fresh chestnuts must always be cooked before use and are never eaten raw, owing to their tannic acid content.

You need to remove the chestnuts from their skins by either boiling or roasting them. For both options, first make a small incision in the skin or you'll have a house full of chestnut shrapnel as they will explode. If cooking over an open fire, keep one whole as when this explodes you know the others are done (not a method for the overly house proud!).

Once cooked, peel off the tough shell and the papery thin skin underneath. Peel the nuts whilst hot (it's impossible to peel a cold chestnut!) to ensure the complete removal of the inner brown furry skin, called the 'tan', which is bitter.

Dessert

The texture of the cooked nuts means they can be a very useful alternative to flour in desserts as they can be blitzed in a food processor into a fine crumb. Chocolate and chestnuts are a heavenly combination; the French celebrate this with bûche de Noël, a chocolate log filled with a chestnut purée served at Christmas. Mary Cadogan's chestnut truffle cake and our chocolate & chestnut truffle torte make satisfyingly silky and indulgent centerpieces for a festive gathering.

The Italians use chestnuts in Montebianco, where thick chestnut purée is topped with cream to replicate the mountain after which it is named. But for me the ultimate celebration of the chestnut is marrons glacés, in which the chestnuts are cooked in sugar syrup of increasing concentration, saturating the nut with sugar through a process similar to osmosis.

Chestnut flour, made from dried ground chestnuts, is worth seeking out from larger supermarkets, specialist food shops and delicatessens. The pale brown flour has an unusual but pleasant smoky flavour and is gluten-free and nutritious. You can use it as a thickener for soups and stews or to make tasty breads, pancakes, fritters and cakes such as our lemon, crème fraîche & chestnut cake. Chestnut flour doesn't keep well, but can be frozen, well wrapped, until needed.

Comments, questions and tips

From France..lots of sweet chestnut trees...
Not excited about squashing the nuts underfoot to remove the prickly painful husk...can anyone tell me what happens if you bake them instead, with the prickles still in place?
My dream is of a row of nuts spiked on skewers..roasting over an open fire...Then, when everything looks charred..just shaking them off..and finding extra tasty nuts, well cooked..inside..all ready to drop into cream and brandy..

Keith Hide

4th Feb, 2018

To say they are 'never eaten raw' is untrue. I love raw chestnuts! I've been eating them raw since I was a young child and they've never done me any harm. I cut them in half lengthways and then the halves are easy to peel. I live in England, but remember reading somewhere that the American variety should not be eaten raw.

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